Remember your old friend, The Bill? That lovable Schoolhouse Rocks' character? Well... He's gone missing. And the ransom: $6.5 billion... Or he gets it.Maybe that's a little extreme. But, the Sunlight Foundation, a non-profit government watchdog, reported this week that there was "$6.5 billion worth of unspent earmarks from the most recent transportation funding bill" passed in 2005. The group is calling the unspent money, "Disappearmarks."

Many commercial real estate loans across the country will mature soon, and community banks will feel the strain if property owners can’t pay. Georgia Tech Professor Ellen Dunham-Jones, author of Retrofitting Suburbia, explains the benefits of turning properties in the red, green.

Alison Stewart sits down with Elizabeth Warren, attorney, Harvard Law professor and chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel, in a Blueprint America special report about the potential of a national commercial real estate foreclosure crisis.

The residents of Dubuque, Iowa, have signed onto a unique experiment to revitalize their city though a focus on sustainability. Local historian and museum director Jerry Enzler shares a little bit of the background -- where Dubuque came from -- and how and why this focus on sustainability is important for his city’s future.

PROFILES FROM THE RECESSION, a collection of BLUEPRINT AMERICA video and transcribed reports from the field, looks at recovery from this Recession with stories on transportation and the country's infrastructure (its planning, design, and livability).

Following its PBS broadcast this February, BLUEPRINT AMERICA: Beyond the Motor City hits the road this May and June for a screening tour across the United States to communities wanting to host public screenings of the film...and to join the conversation about the future of transportation in America.